Pixar has announced that RenderMan will be free for non-commercial usage. Examples of non-commercial use-cases include evaluations, personal learning, experimentation, research, and the development of tools and plug-ins for RenderMan.

Leonard Nimoy’s death highlights a classic Canadian $5 parlor trick — doodling on former Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s likeness to transform him into a Vulcan. It annoys the Bank of Canada, but this week they confirmed it’s not illiegal, so hosers everywhere will continue to boldly go for the sharpie.

Today, in 55+ locations around the world, the ladies are fixing Wikipedia for you.

Wikipedia’s problems with gender distribution are legendary, and a 2011 survey by the Wikimedia Foundation found that less than 8.5% of contributors were female. This has led (by default) to a paucity of entries on seminal women—especially in the arts. To help rectify this, on March 7th, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will turn the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Education and Research Building into mission control for a vast international effort to help promote, create, and edit articles on female artists and movements.

The company used its 30-kilowatt fiber weapon system known as ATHENA (Advanced Test High Energy Asset). The ground-based laser prototype burned through the engine manifold of a mounted truck in mere seconds. The vehicle, hoisted onto a test platform, was running its engine and drive train, simulating a real-life military scenario.

Now she is trying out Patreon, in which people volunteer to pay her to make stuff, and in turn she can give it away for free to everyone else. Funny how close that is to the public radio funding model…

from the "i tried to make a joke about a ridiculous situation and discovered truth is stranger than imagination" department

Guest Meadhbh Hamrick says: …so we all know about superfish and the NSA putting spyware on hard drives, right? so i made the joke “NSA p0wns your hard drive, Lenovo laptops p0wn themselves. what next? insecure firmware in light-bulbs?”
— and then someone sent me this link from last year.

Collins warned that these trends would convince a future generation of researchers that their field was inhospitable. Fewer young scientists would mean fewer scientific discoveries, making it more difficult for companies to profit and for public health authorities to guard against diseases.

Guest Meadhbh Hamrick asks,
“Want to gain serious geek cred? Fab your own printed circuit board. Seriously though, from time to time, if you’re building burning man projects or home sprinkler systems it makes a lot of sense to fab your own PCBs. It’s not nearly as toxic as it used to be (still, don’t go mixing ferric chloride into your martinis) and knowing you CAN fab your own board is pretty effing liberating.

“Angelina is a single-sided printed circuit board design (released
under a creative commons license) that adds 4 switches and 4 LEDs to your raspberry pi. You can get everything you need to make it online or from local stores.”